Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012)

Once Adrienne Rich[2] got the pretty (though pointed) rhyming verse out of her system (and she did that early--her first book was published when she was still at Radcliffe) Adrienne Rich constructed a voice for herself that was equal parts lyric brilliance, surgically precise language, and undiluted rage. To call her a feminist poet, while probably accurate, diminishes her project. Yes, the overarching issue of her writing, perhaps its sole impetus, was the struggle to carve out a place for women in society and as such she can be seen as a political/activist poet, few if any of her poems can be read as merely political statements.

They are slipperier and more complex than that. She was not arguing so much for equality for women (though that was a part of it) as she was seeking a definition of womanhood that did not depend on an oppositional, yin/yang relationship to male identity--something complete in and of itself.

Whether or not she succeeded is not for me to say, though I would argue she has come as close as anyone has. Probably more importantly, it seems she arrived at an understanding that satisfied her own needs and she spent a good deal of her career exploring, building upon and sharing it with the rest of us.

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